West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1887-10-14
SUGAR FROM SORGHUM.

returned from Fort Scott, Kansas,
where the department Of agriculture
has been conducting experiments in
making sugar from sorghum by the
diffusion process. Hais enthusias-
tic over the results. 1nstead OF pay
inc a hundred millions of dollars
annually for foreign sugar, he conf
dently asserts that 'fhese expert
ments have demonstrated that we
have a sugar plant THAT can be
grown and converted proftably into
sugar south of the 39th parallel of
the Gulf of Mexico" This brings
its possibilities within the latitude
of Maryland-the successful exper-
iments made by the department at
Rio Grande, New jersey, and also
commented on by the commissioner,
being conclusive as tolthe fact. But
when he speaks of the diffusion or
saturation process as q new thing,
he appears to be unaware that it was
in operation on the Koch plantation,
in Louisiana, as far back as 1875,
where it was applied to the extrac-
ton of the juice of sugar cane, the
mode of operation being substanti-
ally similar to that now in use at the
sorghum sugar works in Kansas,and
at the other experimental works in
New Jersey. In the julius Robert
diffusion process, used by the
Messrs. Koch, the cane was cut into
slips or chips" as described by
Commissioner Coleman, passed into
cylinders which when filled were
saturated with water heated by
steam by boiler through which the
diffusive juice passed. 1t was said
at the time that q much greater pro-
portion of the juice OF the sugar
cane was extracted by this method,
and that the clarifying process was
much abridged.
Commissioner Colman. in speak
ing of it as applied to sorghum, de-
clares that it eXhausts the saccha-
rine matter in that plant so thor
oughly that there is scarcely trace
of it left. It's due TO Professor
Collier to say that while he was con
nected with the agricultural bureau
at Washington, twelve years ago, he
made analyses OF the juices of sew
eral kinds of sorghum, and was
among the first to describe their sac
charine properties and to point out
that the early amber sorghum was
to be preferred, as capable of being
grown over the largest extent of
country. There was Honduras
variety that gave heavier crop of
cane, but it could only be grown in
the Southern States, while the am
Der variety will grow wherever corn
can be cultivated. This statement,
however, admits of some modifica-
ton. The early amber variety Of
sorghum was extensively cultivated
in Minnesota rs far back as 1877 on
the faith of the reports of the agri
cultural bureau as to its sugar-pro-
ducing properties. In 1878 twenty
eight hundred acres Of sorghum were
grown there, nearly all of which
were converted into syrup. 1t was
then found, as it has been found
since, that the greatest difficulty
was in obtaining from the syrup
crystallizable sugar. The reason
for this appears to be, according to
the statement just made public by
Commissioner Colman, that the 39th
parallel is the limit of the profitable
conversion of sorghum juice into
sugar, where Minnesota lies between
the forty second and forty-ninth
parallel. Prof. Collier, therefore,
must have been mistaken in saying
that sorghum sugar could be made
"wherever corn could be grown"
His laboratory experiments led him
to believe that, by the old process of
extracting the juice of the cane by
pressure, two tons of sorghum sugar
could be produced from about ten or
eleven tons of cane In this he was
also mistaken. In the experiments
made at Fort Scott ten tons of cane,
by the new and better process,yield-
ed but twelve hundred pounds of
sugar, and at the New Jersey Works
but eleven hundred pounds. To othis,
however, is to be added ten gallons
of molasses to every ton of cane, or,
in other words, one hundred gallons
per acre. Sorghum also produces
about twenty five bushels of seed per
acre, which Commissioner Colman
claims to be 'just as good for feed
ing all kinds of stock as Indian
corn" which many farmers who
have tried it will beg leave to doubt.
Nevertheless, if these Kansas and
New Jersey experiments prove by
later experience that it is not only
practicable but profitable for us to
make sugar from sorghum over all
the territory up to and south of 80
degrees. and that the sale of the
cane to the mills will pay the farmer
better than corn, which is Il point
yet to be decided, "a new industry" "
as Commissioner Colman says, will
certainly have arisen "that will open
zt ,..o,,.o:.c~ Ga11 Gov 10Th for